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"That's all we're going to comb from the Maritime Administration's mass storage system."
"Nothing new there," Pitt agreed.
What now?"
Can you tap the Coast Guard headquarters documents?"
Yaeger gave a wolfish grin. "Can Aunt jemima make pancakes?"
He consulted a thick black notebook for a minute, found the insertion he was looking for and punched the number into a pushbbutton telephone connected to a modern link. The Coast Guard computer system answered and accepted Yaeger's access code, and the green block letters swept across the display: "PLEASE STATE YOUR REQUEST."
Yaeger gave Pitt a questioning look.
"Ask for an abstract of title on the Pilottown," Pitt ordered.
Yaeger nodded and sent the request into the terminal. The answer flashed back and Pitt studied it closely, noting all the transactions of the vessel from the time she was built, who owned it as long as it was a documented vessel flying the United States flag, and the mortgages against it. The prohe was redundant. The Pilottown had been removed from documentation when it was sold to an alien, in this case the Kassandra Phosphate Company of Athens, Greece.
"Anything promising?" Yaeger inquired.
"Another dry hole," Pitt grunted.
"How about Lloyd's of London? They'll have it in their register."
"Okay, give it a shot."
Yaeger logged out of the Coast Guard system, checked his book again and routed the terminal to the computer bank of the great maritime insurance company. The data printed out at 400 characters a second. This time the history of the Pilottown was revealed in greater detail. And yet little of it appeared useful. Then an item at the bottom of the display screen caught Pitts attention.
"I think we might have something."
"Looks pretty much like the same stuff to me," said Yaeger.
"The line after Sosan Trading Company."
"Where they're listed as operators? So what? That showed up before."
"As owners, not operators. There's a difference."
"What does it prove?"
Pitt straightened, and his eyes took on a reflective look. "The reason owners register their vessel with what is called a 'country of convenience' is to save costly licenses, taxes and restrictive operating regulations. Another reason is they become lost to any kind of investigation. So they set up a dummy front and carry the company headquarters andress as a post office box, in this case, Inchon, Korea.
Now, if they contract with an operator to arrange cargoes and crews for the ship, the transfer of money from one to the other must take place. Banking facilities must be used. And banks keep records."
"All right, but say I'm a parent outfit. Why let my shady shipping line be run by some sleazy second party if we leave traceable banking links? I fail to see the advantage .
"An insurance scam," Pitt answered. "The operator does the dirty work while the owners collect. For example, take the case of a Greek tanker several years ago. A tramp called the Trikeri. It departed Surabaja, Indonesia, with its oil tanks filled to the brim.
After reaching Capetown, South Africa, it slipped onto an offshore pipeline and removed all but a few thousand gallons. A week later it mysteriously sank off West Africa. An insurance claim was filed on the ship and a full cargo of oil. Investigators were dead certain the sinking was intentional, but they couldn't prove it. The Trikeri's operator took the heat and quietly went out of business. The registered owners collected the insurance payoff and then siphoned it off through a corporate maze to the power at the top."
"This happen often?"
"More than anyone knows," Pitt replied.
"You want to dig into the Sosan Trading Company's bank account?"
Pitt knew better than to ask Yaeger if he could do it. He simply said, "Yes."
Yaeger logged out of the Lloyd's computer network and walked over to a file cabinet. He returned with a large bookkeeping ledger.
